I will be brewing a wheat beer this weekend or next. My goal is to add a fruit to it. I am hearing many thoughts on doing this. I have heard about using puree, concentrate, fresh frozen, fresh boiled, fresh soaked in burbon. And I have heard anything from adding to the end of the boil, right before adding yeast, secondary, etc. Anyone done this before?

Well, I am reading past threads on this site. I think I will go ahead and try adding a bunch of fresh orange zest to the boil as I add the finishing hops for the last 2 minutes. Then I will add some fresh cherries that I will freeze first. I'm going to go with an orange cherry wheat.

Since the blood oranges are pretty much out of season I found
some that were still good.

I zested the oranges (6) with a potato peeler and froze.

Since I wasn't using the oranges immediately I sliced them up
and put in enough water to almost cover them, added 1/4 cup sugar and put
them on the stove at 150-160 degrees for about 20 minutes, let cool and froze.

I plan on adding 1 oz of the zest at about 10 minutes from flameout.
I am on the fence about adding the oranges. I think I am going to
primary for about 2 weeks then secondary with the oranges for
1 to 2 weeks. My reasoning is not having the fruit involved with the fermentation process.
Let the fruit flavor the beer.

I'm reading a lot of different methods. I was also thinking of zesting the peel. I thought about using the oranges with sugar and water as well. It may increase the alcohol content too. But I am going to probably do orange peel at flameout, primary for 2 weeks and then add cherries that were pasturized similarly to how you explained and throw them in the secondary for another 2 weeks. We will see. Maybe it'll be a cherry wheat with a hint of orange.

I'm reading a lot of different methods. I was also thinking of zesting the peel. I thought about using the oranges with sugar and water as well. It may increase the alcohol content too. But I am going to probably do orange peel at flameout, primary for 2 weeks and then add cherries that were pasturized similarly to how you explained and throw them in the secondary for another 2 weeks. We will see. Maybe it'll be a cherry wheat with a hint of orange.

I have a wheat IPA in my primary right now that I zested 3 oranges and added that along with my 5 minute hops. The wort was amazing. It took off like a champ with the Wyeast 1010 after doing a starter for 28 hours. It smells good, looks good, and tastes good (so far). There is a definite hint of orange in both the taste and aroma. If I ever use orange again, it'll definitely be zest @ the 5 minute left mark.

Sounds great! I assume it's a 5 gallon batch that you zested 3 oranges? Was it fine zest with a zester? Or is it peels? I figure the fine zest might cause particles in the finished beer. maybe not though.

Sounds great! I assume it's a 5 gallon batch that you zested 3 oranges? Was it fine zest with a zester? Or is it peels? I figure the fine zest might cause particles in the finished beer. maybe not though.

Yep, 5 gallon batch. I just used the part of the cheese grater with the small holes. It made some stringy zest. Most of it stayed in the brew kettle. Some of it made its way into the carboy, but that's fine. Any that'll be in the carboy should stay there when I rack this out. It's definitely the way to go. I used organic oranges so they didn't have any type of chemicals on them and washed them pretty thoroughly, as well.

I would absolutely use organic oranges as well. However, I am still torn between cherry and strawberry. Maybe even keep it as an orange wheat. I plan on brewing a rasberry chocolate bourbon stout in August/September so it is nice and ready for nect holiday season. I was told that soaking the raspberries in bourbon would both sanitize them and give a hint of bourbon flavoring. Can't wait for that.